Full board considers medical care issues at jail|

Published 4:45 am, Sunday, June 1, 2014

Medical services for the Midland County Jail have been a hot topic since January.

Amid much controversy with the first round of bids, the board of commissioners withdrew all them and began the process anew in February.

The adventure started last September when five original bids were received for physician and nursing services at the jail. Sheriff Scott Stephenson eliminated three of the bids, leaving People-to-People Network (PPN) and ATC Healthcare-Midland as the two serious bidders for the contract that is worth more than $300,000 per year.

Those original bids saw two main points of contention.

First, there was confusion over the definition of a medical technician.

ATC Executive Director Wendy White stated in late January, “If you go on the state of Michigan website and you look up (medical technician or MT), you could have a medical technologist, an EMT or a paramedic. A medical assistant would be around $20, $21 an hour, that is a different position. Those job descriptions weren’t included in the bid. So, I believe the bid is flawed because all the other bidders did not know what they were bidding on. They assumed they were bidding on EMTs or paramedics. The med tech was different; I was at $42 an hour versus PPN which was $20 and $21 because we were bidding on two different types of positions.”

Also in question was why the county was not accepting the low bid of ATC.

The original bids saw ATC come in at $341,880 for each year of the two-year contract while PPN’s bid was $372,736 for the first year and $383,092 for the second year. However, Midland County Sheriff Scott Stephenson stated that he felt very comfortable with PPN, which has provided medical services at the jail for the last 14 years.

“It came down to: ‘What are we used to? What works for us?’ PPN has kept us out of litigation and has been known to come in at night, without charging, to evaluate inmates,” he said.

After the Administration and Operations committee recommended PPN be awarded the bid, Chairman Nick Finley, R-1st District, withdrew the bids before the full board had the opportunity to vote. That precipitated beginning the process all over.

After sending out new bids for the services, the bids came back to the A&O committee on Wednesday.

In a 3-0 vote, commissioners Finley, Jim Geisler, R-5th District, and Rich Keenan, R-4th District, voted to approve awarding bids for nursing services and physician services to PPN. Now, the measure goes onto the full board at its meeting of Tuesday, June 3.

This time, the MT question was cleared up.

“The bid process was much clearer,” said White by phone on Thursday. “We were given a tour of the jail, which was very helpful...But, since the bids were opened on April 9, there has been no communication.”

However, the dollar amount is still an issue. Even commissioners struggled to understand the dollar amounts.

“We had asked for hourly rates, so if you multiply the hourly rates by the total hours that we had in the bid specs, we projected out the cost,” explained County Finance Director Tori Meyer. “Now, one of the bids included some other items that they did not incorporate into their hourly rate that they wanted to tack on in addition. That is why we have a total. So, we worked through all the numbers and when we looked at the total cost, People to People was the lowest bid.”

Those bids by PPN came in at $333,568.20 for 2014-15 and $340,277.20 for 2015-16. ATC bid $290,276.08 for the first year and $299,320.08 for the second year. Advanced Correctional Healthcare was the third bidder at $383,490.07 for both years.

In a letter, dated May 29, to Finley, White stated:

“..I understand the County can select a vendor regardless of price but I do think a 2-year bid coming in $84,493.17 less than PPN and $134,919.72 less than ACH is noteworthy. I have a deep understanding of financial stress placed on the General Fund accounts throughout the state and I am completely transparent on how I calculate my rates.”

However, responding to a request by the Daily News for an explanation, Meyer explained the reasoning why, even though ATC was low bidder, the selection was made to recommend the contract be awarded to PPN.

“Three bids were received and evaluated by a 5-person committee. All five persons on the committee felt that one of the companies was not as qualified since they are a staffing firm. Their main focus is to recruit and hire staff to meet a contract. The committee members felt that this organization did not have the depth or resources that the other two companies could provide.

“Furthermore, while the national organization has been in existence for five years, the local branch did not meet the criteria for five years experience, something that the committee viewed as noncompliant.

“So of the two remaining qualified and compliant bids, the contract was awarded to the organization that would cost the least and still provide the quality of healthcare we were looking for. The (bid) clearly states, “The Midland County Board of Commissioners may make award to the responsible submitter whose proposal is the most advantageous to the County of Midland based upon the recommendations of staff and/or representatives reviewing the proposal.”